Calendar of Farming Operations. 333 



with the necessity of draining. Give barley and buckwheat to 

 poultry, as eggs will now be valuable. Last year's early pullets will 

 begin to lay at Christmas. The French people reserve them for the 

 purpose. 



February. — Continue attention to stock. Go on with like opera- 

 tions upon the farm. A wet month usually. Little evaporation 

 going on. Look to the mouths of your drains and clear away any 

 accumulation. Give turnips freely to your young cattle, and hay : 

 straw is bad policy. An animal well fed will ripen a year sooner. 

 The quality of the manure depends upon the keep. Corn therefore 

 and cake supplied in reasonable quantities is but money put out 

 to interest. The lambs bought in autumn should be fattening on 

 turnips, they should have a shed to run into for shelter. Sheep 

 fatten on cut turnips and hay quicker than on whole turnips and 

 hay with corn. Lambing ewes require constant care : above all 

 things avoid a wet yard for them. In fact wet is injurious to any 

 stock. Wannth, shelter, and good food will richly repay the stock 

 master. About half the winter supply of hay, roots, &c., will now 

 have been consumed ; you can therefore judge and pi'ovide with 

 regard to your remaining stores. Keep your fallows in ridges for 

 the frost to exert its beneficial influence on them ; they will then 

 break like bran. Farmers generally are little aware of the manure 

 that is supplied from the atmosphere : witness the Lois Weedon 

 experiments. Some sow their barley now, considering that the 

 early sown yields the best sample. Sow vetches, beans, peas, 

 Talavera wheat. Manure and dig hop gi'ounds. Break air holes 

 in fish ponds to let out the bad gas Avhich is generated in stagnant 

 water. Sow saintfoin. New hedges should be set about, but do 

 not top the quicks until the next spring. Lay in stock of seeds. 

 Purchase and haul manures. Catch-meadows begin to exhibit the 

 benefit of their winter clothing. Pare grass lands with a A'iew to 

 burning next month. In breaking up grass land, the safest plan 

 is to pare and burn : if you turn it down simply, leave that opera- 

 tion until you are ready almost to sow. After ploughing sow and 

 roll at once. The grubs and larvae are then buried too deep to come 

 up to attack the grain before it has germinated and grown out of 

 their reach. Build walls. Form ponds. Plash hedges. 



March. — Top dress your wheat. Apply gypsmn (1^ cwt. per 

 acre) to lucerne, red clover, and saintfoin, during this and next 

 month. Stains indicate the springs on wet land now. This is the 

 latest period at which beans, peas, vetches, can be sown. Sow 

 barley, oats, flax, hempseed. The sowing of these crops depends 

 much on local circumstances and climate. On " clover-sick" land 

 put trefoil or beans as a change. Clover should only come once in 

 12 years on the same ground. Pick stones off" seeds. Prepare 

 potato ground to plant at the end of the month. New ground where 

 a coppice has been grubbed up or a fence cleared delights this 

 plant, and saves the crop, as a rule, from disease. Plant hops. Cut 

 alders. Begin to feed water meadows. Destroy moles. Top dress 



